In this biography, author Michael explores the twin questions of who was truly America’s first president and why has he been forgotten?
Born in 1715, the aristocratic John Hanson grew up on a tobacco plantation located (ironically) near the Mount Vernon estate now revered as George Washington’s residence. Michael readily acknowledges that he is a Hanson family descendant but avoids hagiography, frequently scolding Hanson (and other Founding Fathers) for owning slaves. In 1781, the Continental Congress unanimously elected Hanson president of America’s first government—eight years before Washington took the helm of the country’s first constitutional government. Previously, Hanson was the first state legislator to argue for independence, and the first to enlist militias for the Revolutionary War—which he helped finance. During his one-year presidency, Hanson decreed July 4th as Independence Day and the last Thursday in November as Thanksgiving. He also launched the Postal Service, the census and the custom of presidential portraiture. And yet, not only is Hanson unknown to most Americans, his probable grave site has been paved over. Michael believes that Hanson is overlooked, in part, because the nation’s first government was designed to be weak, and because many of Hanson’s diaries and personal effects have been lost. But he also builds a persuasive argument that 20th-century historians deserve a share of the blame, singling out (but not naming) presidential historians as “the handmaidens of American amnesia.” He also calls out and identifies websites, particularly Wikipedia, which routinely post gross inaccuracies about Hanson. Stylistically similar to a monograph, Michael’s narrative presents, and all too-often repeats, a torrent of information in fine detail. But this is the first comprehensive biography of “the most forgotten major figure in American history,” and reading this volume is nothing if not enriching. An unrefined but rich trove of information about a major historical figure who has largely been forgotten.
Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2012
ISBN: 978-1467958066
Page Count: 452
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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